Episode 89: Learning Through Pets
Does your child desire a pet? Whether it’s a hermit crab or kitten, a tarantula or a hamster, pets can provide a wealth of learning experiences that will equip your child with important life skills - like researching, budgeting, planning ahead, and growing responsibility. Most importantly, the process will empower your child and help her mature organically.
Watch
Listen
Show Notes
*some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission.
Scoop on the Coop
Jessica's family tarantula is shedding its skin and bursts into a larger size with each shedding! Mandi shares her exciting but sad adventure with aquarium frogs.
Learning Through Pets
Pet Benefits
The list of benefits are reported in article after article about the benefits of pets, such as reducing anxiety, stress, and depression, companionship, exercise - and even helping children with ADHD to focus and bringing calm to children with Autism! “The Power of Pets” article from NIH website is linked here.
Starting the Journey
Before you guide your child on this journey, we recommend that you first ask your child to lead the way. Ask her to make a list of what she knows, what she still needs to learn, how she will learn it, and to figure out how to go about procuring and caring for this pet. Let her start this journey without you inserting ideas, facts, or process into her head - and see what she pursues and learns. If she needs help, here are some ideas and lists to help walk her through the process. Ultimately, you want this entire process to be something that she takes ownership over, which will empower her and grow autonomy, enabling her to be a better pet owner.
Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning author, says, “For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”
1) STEP 1: Research
Learning to research using a variety of resources helps with developing important critical thinking skills and prepares your child for developing credible research papers. It also equips your child for defending his beliefs or argument on a specific subject. If your child really desires a pet, why not guide him to learn a valuable skill while learning something he is excited about?!? Researching a pet is the first stage of the process for acquiring a pet.
Researching can take many forms - it can be any of the following:
interviews (past or current pet owners, pet store clerks, family members who will be impacted by animal)
articles (magazine/online)
books (library, bookstore)
classes (vet camp for a day, Outschool.com, Farm School, day with a pet owner)
YouTube videos
Mock Pet Ownership (daily chores completed without being asked to to them)
Discussion about Sources
What is a credible source of information?
How many sources should you explore?
How do you know the information is true or current? (UCLA has some helpful tools and questions here.)
Topics to Research: Child needs to take notes in a notebook and/or use this checklist
what kinds of pet piques interest and works for your home lifestyle
varieties of a specific animal
pet care responsibilities
habitat (cage, bedding, box, shelter)
Safe diet/nutrition (pet may already have a favorite brand of food)
cage/habitat cleaning needs
litter types and care (pine/paper/crystal/clumping/non-clumping)
life span and life cycle
initial and monthly costs
mental health care (causes of stress and fatigue, and if two is better than one)
sleep habits
exercise needs
impact on your home life
acclimation to you and your home
handling/interaction needs and propensity for biting people
best pet toys or type of play
ways to connect with the pet in a meaningful way
where to procure pet (Humane Society, pet store, private residences, etc.)
local veterinarian clinics and how often a vet visit is needed
home vet care solutions, interventions, and supplies needed
pet care when you are out of town (by whom and supplies needed)
2) STEP 2: Budget
Knowing the Costs
initial costs?
recurring monthly costs?
How long do you expect to keep this animal?
Vet costs
Home vet care solution supplies
unused supplies or habitats that can be cleaned and re-used
emergency funds
Raising the Funds
chores
job (depending on your child’s age)
donations
entrepreneur activities
garage sale
birthday gift designation
negotiation (sharing the load)
Getting the Deals
Facebook marketplace
Craigslist
Offer Up
Buy Nothing
friends of friends
local garage sales (aquariums, heating lamps, repurposing, etc.)
3) STEP 3: Plan Ahead
Your child will need to work with you to prepare the following:
Habitat
where the pet will live (inside, outside, which room to sleep and eat in, etc.)
locations off-limits to the pet
where will food be bought and stored, buy the food and store it (checking first with current owner if there is a food preference)
where food and water will be made available to the pet
where the litter or waste will go
how to dispose of the waste
regular cleaning of cages/aquariums/yard tentative schedule
Introductions
calm ways to bring a pet into your home
how to interact with friends who visit home
Sharing Responsibility
delegate specific tasks to the appropriately aged children
develop tentative schedule for delegation of tasks (food, water, cleaning cage/litter)
4) STEP 4: Grow Responsibility and Maturity
You have the pet, and now let the deeper learning experience begin!
requires work ethic and discipline
learns natural consequences for not caring for or knowing enough about the animal
puts another’s need above her own, teaches selflessness
develops skills and character for caring for younger sibling or future child
ongoing learning about their pets and other related animals
brings mortality into view
“Death is the hardest question, and in an age that gives short shrift to the transmission of wisdom from old to young, it is not surprising that death is the single most obvious fact of life from which we constantly insulate our kids. We have, to our detriment, created a cult of denial about our own mortality. Life needs to be lived and prioritized with the understanding that it is limited. An awareness of one’s mortality makes life richer because the important can be emphasized and the trivial marginalized.”
Enrichment
Read Aloud Books:
Where the Red Fern Grows, Old Yeller, Bunnicula, Charlotte’s Web, Poppy, The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Documentaries/Docuseries
Winged Migration, March of the Penguins, Planet Earth 1 & 2, The Blue Planet 1 & 2, Frozen Planet, The Hunt, Life, Inside the Mind of Cats (Netflix).
TV Shows
Wild Kratts (cable/YouTube TV), Sea Rescue (Amazon Prime), Alaska Animal Rescue (Disney+), Tiny Creatures (Netflix)
Coop Q & A
Question: What makes a great first pet?
Answer: We both share different answers that will guide you down a good path to finding a first pet that fits both you and your child. Jessica thinks a pet rat would be a great opportunity for your child to learn life skills with a non-aggressive animal. You can hold them, they are highly intelligent, you can train them, they have a short life span, and pretty regular care. Mandi suggests finding a pet that the parents and the child are both excited about so that it’s not such a hardship for the parents when they need to chip in with costs or care.
The Coop Homeschool is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. See Disclosure Page for more information.